November 2001

Release Date: November 6, 2001

Nurse Honored by Brother with Endowment for ASU Nursing Students

A younger brother's tribute to Cadine Massey Williams, a nurse for more than 40 years, will benefit nursing students at Angelo State University for years to come.

San Angelo attorney Tom Massey has established the Cadine Massey Williams Memorial Scholarship with the donation of a $20,000 endowment in honor of his sister, who became a nurse upon graduation from high school and stayed in the profession throughout her career.

The scholarship will be awarded annually beginning in the fall of 2002 and will go to a deserving nursing major with financial need.

Massey was the youngest of nine children and his sister was the fifth born. They grew up together in San Angelo so Massey thought establishing an endowment in her hometown would be especially appropriate. Further, he said he had had a special relationship with the university over the years and it was a way he could honor his sister and benefit ASU at the same time.

"She was a nurse virtually all of her life, both in patient care and in nursing administration," Massey said. "This will be a fitting memorial, honoring her dedication to nursing and helping some deserving nursing students with their education in the future."

"I know she loved nursing and caring for people," Massey said. "When anyone in our family was sick, she was right there to help them and I know she was the same way with her patients."

A native of Sulphur Springs, Williams ultimately became chief of nursing services at Parkland Hospital in Dallas before she retired. She died June 21 at the age of 85.

She volunteered for the Army immediately after Pearl Harbor and served as a nurse in the Pacific Theater. She suffered a severe injury to her right arm when the jeep she was riding in was sabotaged in New Guinea. She spent months herself in the hospital, learning to write with her left hand. While the injury may have slowed her, it didn't stop her.

When she returned to the United States, she studied marketing at the University of New York and in 1956 earned a master's degree in nursing administration from the University of Texas. She was a nursing administrator in Lubbock before moving to Dallas and starting to work for Parkland Hospital in the early 1960s.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Dr. Raworth Williams, a Dallas urologist.

While Massey has many fine memories of his sister and her dedication to the nursing profession, one memory stands out the most.

"She always looked like she had just walked out of a bandbox," he said. "Right clothes, right hair and I always thought she was so pretty."